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In April, Merck Director Tai Eto reached out to UPS Customer Solutions to ship allergen-free products for children to Japan. Tai and his wife, originally from Japan, are the parents of a child with extreme food allergies and they thought this was a cause worth supporting. Tai’s wife, Rimi, had gained support from both people and companies across the U.S. to help kids and adults with food allergies who had been suffering after the earthquake and tsunami. Together, Tai and Rimi worked with different manufacturers across the U.S. to collect donations of allergen-free food and were seeking to close the loop with the final transportation component.

The UPS Foundation had been working with the Second Harvest Food Bank and Aidmatrix to support relief efforts in Japan by providing in-kind transportation services. Working together with Second Harvest and Aidmatrix, UPS agreed to move the pallets to Japan and deliver the food to family shelters.

Here’s the message we received from Tai Eto:

Thank you very much to all of you for making this happen!!! We are grateful for your generosity and kindness. The patients, especially the kids who might have lost their loved ones and/or still live in shelters, would be genuinely surprised and excited to receive products from the U.S. sent by an American logistics company as no U.S. made allergen-free product has made it to Japan. To clearly let them know your kindness and support, we plan to mention on the label about your generosity and the fact that we are all rooting for them from the U.S.

Best Regards,

Rimi and Tai Eto

Extra KUDOS are in order for Serena Hawkins and Don Weatherford in Customer Solutions, Esther Ndichu in Urgent Humanitarian Logistics and Joe Ruiz in The UPS Foundation, who worked with Tai to get the deliveries to those in need.